Sweet Tooth
by Kepouros
Summary: Midori is an American-Japanese 20 year old working to grow her very own business: a bakery called Sweet Tooth. But who is this raccoon-eyed, hunched, underdressed man who frequents the bakery at all hours to delicately relish her confections? COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

The time is o'dark thirty Tokyo standard time. It is that magical transitional time from the glowing, raving nightlife to the quiet(er), mundane morning shopping period of old ladies, busy moms, and early risers. Midori was one of the latter.

Dressed sharply for work in black pants and a white shirt with ruffled capped sleeves, her green apron slung in the crook of her arm, Midori walked as briskly as she could, her arms occupied with two brown paper grocery bags that contained all her day's ingredients: cinnamon, butter, milk, sugar...all in muscle-burning quantities. It was the fifty pound bag of self rising flour on one shoulder that was really weighing her down. She really should invest in some sort of cart or bag. Sure, she had inherited her father's tall, strong, decidedly American frame of five-nine, but even good genetics could only contribute so much to lightening her load. Three more blocks, and she'd be at the store. Midori breathed past the trembling in her triceps and walked a little faster.

Bringing handcrafted American baked goods and confectionery traditions to her mother's native country was hard work. Midori was her own employee, boss, office manager, and errand girl. She often pulled twelve hour days, more likely to tip the scales at fifteen. But baking was her passion. She ate up the pictures in magazines detailing gorgeous wedding cakes, dainty pastries, and oozy desserts. And when you truly adore something, you make sacrifices without even caring.

Her mind was flooded with the to-do list for that day, her first work day of the week: at least ten desserts for the walk-ins, two wedding cakes at five feet tall and two-hundred pounds each (seriously, did Japanese people ever do anything halfway?), and balancing the business account. Midori blew a strand of honey-colored hair out of her chocolate eyes. Another breakfast of strong black tea and stevia, the sweetener herb.

There, she'd arrived. With more than a little pride, she glanced up at the sign above the door that boldly proclaimed in both Japanese and English**_ SWEET TOOTH_** with the motto "Feed the Urge" scripted below.

Okay, how would she manage to open the door and keep her armload at the same time...?

Maybe the decision wasn't hers. The flour bag was slipping precariously off one sharp shoulder and starting its descent to splat-ville...

* * *

L sat at his computer, hunched over his knees. Again.

He'd hit a wall in his deductions. Again.

And he was hungry. _Again._

All-nighters did wonders for his metabolism.

Beside him, Light (aka currently 7% Kira) groaned and stretched his back with an audible crack. "Ryuzaki, I'm cooked." He flicked golden eyes to L's purple-ringed ones. "Can we go home now?" The rest of the Kira Investigation Team murmured ascent, Matsuda punctuating his implore with a yawn.

"Go home," said L in a monotone, mostly due to his sugar craving and sleep deprivation. "Get some sleep and be back at the same time tonight."

They commenced to packing up paperwork into briefcases, powering down computers, and rolling desk chairs under the tables. L heard Aizawa mutter at he exited, "What is he, a freaking vampire? I've never seen the man sleep."

"Believe me: he not only sleeps, he snores," assured Light. "I was chained to him for months, remember?"

This brought tired laughter from the team as they stepped onto the elevator down to the parking level, leaving L alone with his thoughts.

And his growling stomach.

Despite popular belief, L actually was a human, with normal biological functions and no particular aversion to sunlight, just no real need for it. However, it seemed his quest for sweets would urge him outside the realm of fluorescence and into the land of UV.

Taking the elevator his peers had recently vacated, L descended to the ground level of the building he'd had built with the Wammy fortune and dinged! to the concrete, empty parking deck. Walking with his curious gait, hunched to three-quarters his size and hands in his pockets, he wandered out of the bowels of his personal prison and onto the street. Prison though it might be, L was content with his life. He lived for the mystery, the brain-shearing challenge, the mental chess game with criminals, particularly Kira. L had never had the pleasure of such a thrilling, twisty chase. It ran along his nerves and lit the fire in his belly, that scarcely contained, roaring passion he attributed to only the hunt. It boiled under his skin, just out of sight.

Maybe the obsessiveness with which he attacked cases bordered insanity. It certainly drove him to extremes in living habits: sleeping only when he was about to tip out of his chair, consuming only that which kept his brain operating at that pace of neuron firing that could be attributed to sugar alone, bathing only occasionally, driving his team to greater and greater lengths to catch Kira...

But he got he job done. Being the eighth smartest person in the world and tied with Light as the smartest in Japan, he could afford it.

Fresh air was foreign yet welcome to his lungs. Fresh may have been the operative word, but in Japan, there was no such thing.

Being a man of no small amount of paranoia, L kept an eagle eye on the day-to-day proceedings of businesses in the immediate vicinity of the Wammy tower. As such, he knew there was a little hole in the wall bakery a half kilometer away. This was where his grumbling stomach drove him. He drew the kind of looks from the sparse pedestrians that were usually reserved for roadkill: interest then aversion. It didn't faze him in the slightest, but he wondered just what it was like to be judged by what good he did than by how he looked. He took the worst criminals known to mankind out of their lives. Didn't that mean something? Unruly black hair, raccoon eyes, baggy plain white t-shirt and jeans made him stand out in comparison to the fashionable dressed, groomed, and well-rested general public. And so they judged.

Kira judged, too, L reasoned. He judged by man's judgments, for he almost exclusively killed those imprisoned or under some sort of punishment by law. And yes, crime had fallen to almost nil. But did that make murder right? The victims of Kira's deathly touch were...what? Evil? Surely one act, the acts short of killing, did not an evil man make. Did that mean non-killers deserved to die?

Ryuzaki loved this argument: he could go round and round in his head with it, like a dog chasing its tail. He was so engrossed in the internal monologue that he very nearly bumped a woman standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

It took him a split second to realize the heavy paper sack of flour on her shoulder was slipping. She was rotating with its momentum, but it was going to fall. L reached out and plucked the wayward bag out of its descent, taking the fifty pounds easily with his deceptive strength.

The woman said, "Oh, thank you! I didn't see you there."

"I just walked up," replied L in his monotone. He eyed the sign above their head. "Are you Sweet Tooth?"

The woman giggled. Actually giggled. "_I'm _not, but I do own the store. Will you carry that in for me? I owe you a cookie."

Ryuzaki kept his comical perk-up contained at the offer of a sweet. She dug for her keys and unlocked the front door, the bell chiming. He shifted the bag to his shoulder, straightening up an extra foot in the process, and followed her into the store. With a relived "Phew!" she slid the brown paper grocery bags in her arms onto the counter, flexing and rubbing her bicep. "I'll take it from here." The flour changed hands and she started flipping light switches as she walked gracefully around the counter and into a back room. "Choose a cookie, there's a ton of them," she called over her shoulder. The lights she flipped illuminated a small store, with a counter and register against the wall farthest from the door, cold cases (mostly empty) framing the walk-in area, and three sets of two chairs and a table.

L walked to the nearest cold case and peered in. After inspecting the lonely cakes, he found the cookies on top of the display, cellophane-wrapped and arranged in baskets. There were at least eight different types. His mouth watered. Chocolate chip? An old standby, true, but this called for some degree of adventure. Macadamia? That was somewhat exotic, make a note. What was that one, the light-with-brown-dusting?

"It's called snickerdoodle," said the woman, appearing behind the counter. He hadn't heard her approach. "They're hard to find in Japan."

L nodded and plucked the crinkly cookie from its basket, arranged himself in the nearest chair with his knees under his chin, and began to open the wrapper. She smiled and went about her setup routine, seemingly content to let him not talk and put his feet on her furniture. Now L got his first good look at her. She was American with her blond hair captive in a hair net and her height, but Japanese with her accent and was dressed more like a head waitress than a baker, but her apron bore a few faint food coloring stains that belied her work ethic.

The silence was not awkward, but it looked like he should be the one to get things started. "I'm Ryuzaki," said L around a mouthful of cookie. Correction, _delicious_ cookie. Soft and crumbly and good.

"Hi, Ryuzaki. I'm Midori." She flashed him another beaming smile, turning a key in the register. L could hear a large industrial mixer going in the kitchen, and the hum of a preheating oven. He could smell lemons strongly, and under it, sugar and butter. He took another deep breath.

Midori appeared in front of him again (she seemed a closet teleporter: her steps were silent as a whisper) and settled into the seat opposite him, two steaming mugs in her hands. One was black tea, the other green. L finished his cookie and set about to preparing his tea with half the container of sugar. The corner of her mouth twitched in a repressed smile. "Are you a sweets fiend, too?"

L looked up from methodically stirring the beverage. "Yes. Are you?"

She nodded, motioning around. "It's part of the job description."

"Sugar?" asked L.

"No thanks. I switched to stevia."

"What is that?"

"An herb that has no calories and it 300 times sweeter than sugar. I'm a borderline diabetic, so I have to be careful." She giggled. L kind of liked the sound. "But I have to watch how I travel with stevia: it's a white, powdery substance. Cops tend to jump to conclusions about that sort of thing."

L nodded, smiling faintly.

"Aha! Got one," she said, pointing at him. "Be waiting for you to smile the whole time. My work is done."

L couldn't help it. His smile grew. So she liked his smile the way he liked her laugh?

In the kitchen, the mixer cut off and the oven beeped. "Just a second," Midori said, getting up and taking her mug with her. She started spooning copious amounts of the mixer's contents into pans of various sizes and shapes.

"That smells good," said L, moving to lean over the counter so she could hear him.

"I have a wedding cake to do today. It's huge." Midori sounded equal parts excited and dreadful. He finished his tea, watching her flit past the sliver of kitchen he could see if he craned his neck. She slid the pans into the oven and came back, wiping her hands. "I wrote the recipe, and it's one of my best sellers."

"I liked the cookie," said L. "May I take the rest to-go?"

Her eyes widened, but she seemed pleasantly surprised. "Sure! It'll take me a second to bag them up."

"I have time."

Midori wheedled a promise out of him that Ryuzaki would return the next morning to try the chocolate vegan cupcakes. He was happy to oblige. Ten minutes later, L exited Sweet Tooth laden with four bags of cookies, totaling 144 of the sweets. When the Kira Investigation Team got back that night, half of the cookies were gone and L's computer chair was adrift in a sea of wrappers. He seemed...different, somehow. But they blamed the massive ingestion of sugar.

**Author's Note**

**Hi, guys and gals! I have been chewing on this story for a while, just waiting to finish my Sherlock Holmes story first. I wanted to put L in the social situations he never seems to get into in the TV series and see how he reacts. In case you haven't noticed, I use L and Ryuzaki interchangeably. If I messed anything up, or if you liked this story, please review! Reviews are cookies for a starving author!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Midori wondered if L had forgotten to grace her with his presence all the next day. Why she cared _so golly-darned much_ if he showed was beyond her. He was just a customer, right?

Right.

Then why did visions of his soft (she imagined) ebony hair, big, beautiful eyes (so what, he had insomnia), and long, slender fingers (that her own fingers itched to entwine with) dance through her mind all day? And don't even get her started on that lithe, wiry body whose strength was belied by baggy clothes...Ugh, insert mental slap here.

It was ridiculous. In fact, it was borderline stark raving mad. Midori had just met the guy for the first time, and now her heart was doing somersaults every time she thought of him. Never in all her years had such a thing occurred. Not to mention how much she'd _giggled like an idiot_ around him. Disconcerting, that was the perfect word. But, crazy as she was becoming, her heart and brain agreed on one thing: she had to see him again. Preferably before she gave herself a concussion from all the thought-dismissing head shakes.

So whenever the bell over the door dinged, Midori raced out of the kitchen, a huge, hopeful smile on her face, and tried to contain her disappointment when it was not him. Over and over, all day. She actually forgot to add baking powder to a batch of cupcakes and ruined them all. While she picked the encrusted confections into the trashcan with a butter knife, muttering swears in various languages, she was disturbed from her quiet ranting by the bell ringing yet again.

Sighing, she set the casualty of her careless thoughts into the sink to soak, and went around the corner. The smile she mustered must have been tired, because she felt the effort it took to pull it onto her face. "_Konnichiwa_, welcome to Sweet Tooth. How can I help you?"

The first thing that struck her about the man was that he was well-dressed. Scarily well-dressed, in fact. Perfect suit, perfect tie, perfect hair...it was almost sickening. And though she was loathe to admit it, he was looking her over rather strongly. _Eeeeww, _she thought to herself, folding her arms in a way she hoped was casual and pasting the smile permanently on her lips. But the feeling that she got in her gut when his eyes flicked to hers left no doubt in Midori's mind: this guy was Trouble, with a capital 'T'. "H-how can I help you?" she repeated, hating the stutter.

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a long draw before answering. His smile was enough to make Midori's scalp crawl. "I need a cake," he said, his voice heavy with smoke.

"You can chose from the cold box, or I can take a special order," said Midori briskly. Her ire was back. How dare he smoke in her store? "I'm afraid smoking is against the law in this building, sir."

He cocked his head at her in a reptilian way that made Midori want to snap his neck. Blowing out the lungful, he proceeded to take another. "Too bad," he said. And he dropped the cigarette in her tea mug.

Maybe Midori had more American in her blood than she gave herself credit for, because right then, it took all she could do not to say, complete with head bob, "Oh, NO you didn't." It was as he withdrew his hand that Midori caught sight of the sleeve of tattoos that peeked from under his cuff links. Anger tangled with fear in her breast, and her gaze flew to the neck of his shirt. Sure enough, more ink.

_Oh crap, oh crap, oh CRAP, _she blabbered in her head, the color draining from her face. _He's yazuka. He's Japanese Mafia!_

As though in slow motion, the man reached into his breast pocket. Midori was praying that what he pulled out would not be something that went 'bang' and repainted her walls when -

That blasted bell dinged and in walked L, cool as a cucumber and chewing on his thumbnail. He stopped, taking in Midori's relieved face and the yazuka's annoyed one. "Come back some other time," urged the man smoothly. It sounded like a line that was well used and always got results.

Midori was privately doing 'hail the conquering hero' dance in her head, watching Ryuzaki put the pieces together. Speaking around his thumb, he said, "I have an appointment, sir. It simply cannot wait." His mouth formed words as they appeared in his brain. "In fact, this job interview has been on the books for some time."

Midori's eyes widened. _What's he thinking?_

The yazuka's sneer was hardly contained. "Fine." He withdrew the hand from his breast pocket (Midori fought down a squeak of fear), and slid a nondescript business card across the counter. "I was going to offer you protection from certain unsavory characters in this area," he glanced at Ryuzaki, who by some miracle was standing straight and imposing over the Asian. "But it seems you already have it." His oily gaze floated over her body one more time. "Have a pleasant evening." And he dinged out of the store, leaving a shaking Midori and a curious L in his wake.

Midori raised a trembling hand to her face and scrubbed hard. "Ryuzaki," she whispered.

"That was a bad man," said L. His back was to her: he was watching the yazuka get into his car, and his eyes followed the sedan until it turned the block. "You should be more careful who you let in here." Suddenly, she was sobbing silently into his neck, arms tightly wrapped around him. L was quite unsure what to do.

"He was going to hurt m-me!" she whimpered. "I could feel it! Ryuzaki, if you had been one minute later, I...you..." The sobs renewed themselves.

The socially appropriate thing, L concluded, was to pat her on the back and try to comfort her. He did so. Awkwardly. Crying women made him feel strange. Correction, it was just this woman. But why? "You're safe now, he's gone," he said. It sounded good, and he mentally congratulated himself. Having her tears slowly wet his shirt made him feel stronger somehow, like a beast was rearing up from slumber in his chest. _Protect the female _was an evolutionary imperative. The female was threatened. Go-go-gadget, caveman with club!

But the fact still remained that his Midori (insert record scratch to a halt here) - wait, what? HIS Midori? Never mind. Midori would not be a victim of this swindle. Many people in Japan had been targeted by the yazuka, who forced weak business owners to pay for protection from violence and vandalism they themselves were the cause of. It was an all-too-common scam, and one that not even the fear of Kira could dissuade.

Midori sniffling to a stop brought L back to himself. She drew back, wiping harshly at her eyes. "Sorry," she said, the tears still evident in her voice. "It's just that...I'm all alone in this country. I don't have any family here to help keep me safe, and no friends true enough to check on me. If I disappeared, it would take them a long time to notice."

"That's not true," said L firmly. He took her by the arm and lowered her into a chair. "You have me." In a stroke of brilliance in the same family as the invention of the telephone, L pulled an unused paper napkin from his lunch of ice cream out of his pocket and handed it to her.

He didn't expect her to cry harder at it. But eventually, she calmed down fully.

"You mentioned a job interview. That was brilliant," said Midori thickly, daubing her eyes dry.

Ryuzaki was studying how the wetness made her lashes darker and heavier and had to apply his brain to the conversation. "Yes, I don't think he'll be back."

"I'm sorry, but I don't have the money to hire anyone right now. Sweet Tooth is barely a year old."

"I never said you had to hire me," said L, sitting down opposite her and curling his toes around the edge of the seat.

Her eyes widened. "What are you saying?"

"I would like to help you where you need it, as a volunteer." Ryuzaki had no idea where this idea was coming from, but the prospect of spending all day with his Midori was a tempting one. And he was starting to recognize the beast in his chest and the heart palpitations for what they were (go-go-gadget, _other_ evolutionary imperative). He just never thought such a thing would transpire to him.

Midori's eyes were also making sense of the strange pull she felt for Ryuzaki. Her conclusion was the same as his. "Okay," she said quietly. Then, louder, "Okay!" She gave a relieved giggle that broke the tension between them, and Ryuzaki smiled.

"Can you start tomorrow?"

"Yes," he replied. The only way he worked on the Kira case during the day was in his head. The computers simply could not keep up with his chain of thought. Why not put those hours to use doing something undeniably, incontrovertibly, irrefutably SWEET?

"Just one question," asked L.

"What's that?"

"Do I have to wear a uniform?"

Her reply was a mischievous smile that L would have loved to see in another setting, but in this instance, it gave him a degree of worry.


	3. Chapter 3

L had never held another job. In Wammy's House, his career had pretty much been decided. Detective work was his calling, like a fish's calling was to swim and a bird's calling was to fly. So this work at Sweet Tooth was the source of no small amount of concern. Having no prior experience, and any internet sources scrapped due to their irrelevance to this profession and employer, L resorted to asking the Kira Investigation Team.

"I assume you have all held jobs prior to this one," he began, stacking sugar cubes.

"Does dog walking count?" asked Matsuda. The whole room turned to look at him. "What? It paid the way for three girlfriends over the summer!"

"Who were obviously blind, deaf and dumb," muttered the Chief.

"What are some good ways to impress an employer?" asked L, plucking a cherry out of a jar and crowning his architectural creation. The pyramid was about three feet high, the boxes that had contained the bricks were scattered everywhere.

"Is this relevant to the Kira case?" asked Light.

L nodded sagely. "Yes. I have reason to believe that Kira holds a public job, and that by cross-referencing responses to various problems presented in the workplace from normal, sane people (yourselves) with those of the general public, we can look for anomalies in the psychiatric profiles that may lead us to Kira." L reached into the pocket of his baggy jeans and pulled out a digital recorder, stabbing it into Aizawa's face. "Please enunciate into the microphone."

The answers surprised L (a hard thing to do). They ranged from "If you're asked about your hygiene habits, LIE," to the eyebrow-raising, "If confronted about your lateness, it takes two magic words to deflect and escape: fuzzy handcuffs."

It seemed to go over well. In fact, the unwitting advice gathered in the span of two hours was enough for L's concerns about his new job to externally expanded to include _nervous, twitchy, _and _sweaty._

But, true to his word, L bravely showed up bright and early, just in time to see Midori squeal up to the shop on the tires of...

a moped?

This wasn't covered in his research.

He also did not know that moped tires could make that noise.

"GOOD MORNING, RYUZAKI!" yelled Midori over the noise, flipping the visor on her helmet up and her kickstand down.

"Good morning," replied L, his response drowned out by the moped's 'hornets in a tin can' motor.

"Isn't she a beaut?" gushed the baker, stroking the handlebars lovingly as she turned the machine off. "I never take her out of the apartment, but today, we need Edna."

"Edna?" echoed L, worry concealed in his tone. Had he been usurped by this Edna character before he'd even begun? "Is she new, too?"

"The moped is Edna, silly!" This was followed by a slightly mental-sounding laugh. "Edna, this is Ryuzaki. Ryuzaki, Edna."

L cocked his head at the bike. "How do you do?" he asked very seriously.

"Okay, introductions aside," said Midori, swinging off the machine. "We have a delivery to make."

"What, and to whom?" asked L, switching to the ready-to-work-voice he'd practiced in the mirror.

Midori maniacally giggled and wrung her hands. "A hundred-plus-pound wedding cake!"

"Midori," started L slowly. "I have to ask...how much tea have you had this morning?"

The breeze off his hyperactive employer as she passed him was enough for L's hair to ruffle. "Only five cups!" she replied cheerily.

L gnawed on his thumb and nodded, speechlessly following her. The cakes called to him like a siren song, complete with swirls of cold air framing it like it had descended from heaven, but he resisted taking a fingerfull of icing. That would be a health code violation, and as he'd learned through Aizawa's retelling of his first job, hands in the food was a no-no. At least, when the boss was watching.

As L helped her assemble the cardboard boxes, nest the delicious looking/smelling four chocolate tiers in their packaging, and slap SWEET TOOTH stickers on them, his thoughts drifted to the oncoming ride...would he put his arms around her waist, or on the seat? he debated.

As it turned out, he could do neither.

The moped was sage green, a color that Midori seemed partial to. It must have been an updated model, because there was a basket on the front handlebars and the seat was extended enough for two people. Or, in this case, 1.5 people and several cake boxes. How she managed to fit his gangly frame onto the moped, along with the herself and the cake boxes, he did not know. He suspected she was a closet contortionist.

He had two tiers of the behemoth cake sandwiched between his front and Midori's back, carefully secured with bungee cords, and was balancing a third layer in his left hand while he gripped Midori's shoulder with his right and the baseboard of the moped with his strong toes. Midori was bent over the handlebars like a mad woman, slaloming around slower bikes, cars, people, and rickshaws like an X-gamer.

By the time they'd gotten two miles out, L was convinced he was riding a death trap. Forget how popular mopeds were in Japan, forget every bit of advice he'd garnered from the team: he was not going to live to see the cake delivered.

_But then_, he reasoned to himself as another chorus of honks and angry yelling crescendoed, _when we __crash, at least I will die surrounded by icing and chocolate._ That lightened his mood long enough for them to enter a tunnel and jump the curb.

While the chemicals in L's bloodstream switched from adrenaline to ATP, he had time to wonder why Midori, a sweet, benign baker, had such obvious experience with DODGING MORNING RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC LIKE THE MOVIE 'TOKYO DRIFT'. With his momentarily freed brain, he concluded that either she was currently in Japan because America wanted to arrest her for grand theft auto, or she had been a F-22 bomber pilot in another life. He was leaning towards the former.

Even with his toes and one hand engaged, L was slipping backwards on the seat with every hairpin turn. There was a pothole coming up, and he steeled himself for it. Using the kinetic energy imparted by the bump, L hauled his butt back onto the seat.

"How you doing back there?" asked Midori as she was forced to come to a stop at a light. She braced the moped with both feet, and he did the same.

"Fine," replied L, in a steadier voice than he gave himself credit for. Working with the Kira team had strengthened his constitution.

"Are the boxes crushed at all?"

"No, they are intact."

"Good," she said. Leaning back slightly, she shot him a smile that made his heart flop. "You're doing great. Keep it up."

L returned her smile as the light turned blue. "Where did you learn to drive-!"

Midori flipped down her visor and burned rubber on take-off, cutting his question short.

The rest of the trip was, thankfully, a blur to L. As they coasted to a stop in the parking lot of the church, L had to force his fingers to disengaged from Midori's shoulder. She rubbed the spot as she dismounted. "Some grip," she commented. "Am I that scary?"

"No," lied L, sliding backwards off the contraption that had nearly sent him to sweets heaven.

"You take one more, and I'll get the other two."

They trooped up the steps of the beautiful building and into the kitchen through the side door. The church seemed to be fashioned after an American institution in design, and was well equipped to handle the eighty or so people whose rabble could be heard through the walls.

"The ceremony just ended," said Midori, huffing a strand of hair out of her face as she set the two heavy boxes on the nearest counter. "We've got to assemble this thing and present it in ten minutes."

Unbidden, L's heart skipped a beat. "You can do that?"

Midori nodded firmly, fixing him with a determined eye. "_We, _Ryuzaki. We can do it."

She began to rattle off directions, and L, steadied by her assurance, followed them as best he could. They lifted as one. They straightened as one. They dropped layer after layer onto the wooden support dowels as one. L found it was easy to see the necessary motions if the problem was approached logically. This went here, that went there, carefully, methodically. No room for mistake when there was only one cake. The tandem was so pronounced that L caught Midori giving him approving smiles. Were those smiles tinted with something else?

The first three layer were stacked, square and clean on top of the plastic base, which rested on a rolling busboy tray they'd found in a corner. "All that's left is the top layer," said Midori.

L sized up the cake. "It's too tall for either of us."

Midori scratched her head. "I'm thinking, I'm thinking...if I stand on the countertop, could you spot me?"

"Yes."

She climbed onto the countertop and clambered upright, looking nervously down on him. Taking the small layer he passed up to her, she inhaled deeply. "Wheel it a hair closer, Ryuzaki." He complied. "Here we go..."

The dowels penetrated the holes in the plastic base easily, and the cake sank down without a hitch. When it came time for Midori to remove her hands and let the tier rest on its brethren, she gasped. "The wheels aren't locked! It's moving!"

L moved fast. She was already at the edge of the countertop, and following the cake on its migration away. She was so far gone her weight was propelling it forward. So, ducking between her and the busboy tray, L put his hands against her stomach and took her weight. This brought his face very close to...whoa.

He felt her sigh of relief against his palms. "Hang on, almost done." The flat, lightly ridged stomach flexed as she jerked her hands out from under the cake. "Perfect." L let his hands slip around her hipbones and walked forwards, straightening her in the process. Once upright, she let her legs hang off the counter. "Phew," she breathed, raising a shaking hand to her brow. "That was too clo-"

L found himself pushed forward by an internal force he did not recognize. He entered her personal space, large palms lightly, warmly resting on her jean-clad knees. As though time was melting, he met her chocolate eyes.

Midori, stopping her words in mid-sentence, seemed intent on his eyes, too, measuring him, gauging. _Is he gonna do it? _Her honey hair fell in a few loose curls around her face, and lips were the color of the insides of strawberries.

That did it. He never could say no to strawberries. L couldn't resist having a taste of those sweet lips.


	4. Chapter 4

Kissing.

L had heard it was something special, but he'd never expected it to be so...wow.

Midori smelled like cinnamon and...roses? He hadn't even known they made perfume like that. Her lips taste like mint chapstick, and matched his movement for movement.

To Midori, he smelled like a man: whatever soap he used, all spicy and divine, and the chocolate that they had handled all day. His lips tasted suspiciously like 60% cacao, too.

It didn't matter that neither of them had any degree of skill (practice made perfect, after all). It didn't matter that they were in a church (albeit the kitchen of one). What did matter, however, was that the little contented noises Midori made as L slid his hands to her back were competing for his ears' attention with...

Was that clapping he heard? And slow dance music?

Midori pulled away, eyes wide. "The cake!" She exclaimed breathlessly. _Error, error, system rebooting_ skittered across her brain. "That's the newlywed's first dance. We've gotta wheel out in five minutes!" Now fully back in her own mind, she realized that she was still sitting on the countertop and that he had seemingly glued his hands to her spine. With a blush and lower-lip-bite, she said shyly, "Rain check, Ryuzaki?"

L's eyes landed on those lips that formed his name so beautifully. "Does it have to be raining? That could take a while."

"No, no," she laughed, one hand caressing his cheek and her eyes shining. "Much sooner than that."

L nodded, taking a half-step away even though he was loathe to do so. Midori primly patted down her hair, straightened her clothes, and hopped off the counter. "Walk around the cake with me. Make sure it's perfect." L nodded again, and fell into step behind her. He found it somewhat difficult to divide his attention between the curve of her back to her hips and the dessert fanatic's wet dream clad in dark chocolate. "What about this?" he asked, pointing to a fondant flower that was short one petal.

"Good eye, I missed that one," she said approvingly, swapping the flower for an extra in her touch-up kit.

"And the icing edge right here is a little crooked."

"You're right. Scrape it off with this. Carefully." Handing him a flat icing knife, Midori lifted a light icing bag, cleared the tip onto a napkin, and repiped the four inches Ryuzaki took off. When she turned around, all evidence of the discarded icing was gone, including the napkin she'd tested her icing tip on. He looked disturbingly innocent.

"From now on, I'll know what that face means," she declared.

"What face?"

"_That_ face. It means you've done something naughty."

L saw an opportunity for experiment and jumped for it. "You may be seeing it often, then."

Midori stared at him for a moment, then blushed deep pink and covered her face with a chuckle. "Oh my goodies, you did not just use innuendo on me."

"If memory serves, I believe I did," replied L, more than a little proud of himself at the reaction he'd elicited.

She took a lungful of air, still blushing, and motioned him closer as she reached into her touch-up box. "I've got something for you. Even if you only wear them this once, these will have done their job." She lifted out a pair of shoes unlike any L had ever seen. They looked to be made of the same material as Crocs, blue with darker blue highlights, velcro straps for closure, and instead of being rounded they had actual toes and nonslip soles. L stared in disbelief.

"I'm guessing you don't wear shoes for a reason," Midori started slowly. "And when you want, you can tell me that reason. But in order to work in food service - "

"I have to wear some form of closed-toed shoe," finished L.

Midori nodded, biting her lip. "Would you do it for me? Please?"

"Midori," began L heavily.

She looked up.

"Those are the most interesting shoes I have ever seen," he said, smiling.

She brightened hopefully. "So you'll wear them?"

"Yes," replied L. He took the shoes, balancing in a perfect flamingo to insert his right foot into the first. "In fact," he said, wriggling his newly clad toes. "I think this is the only shoe in the world I would ever wear."

Midori smiled fully now, relieved. "I'm glad. Do they fit? I guessed your size."

"Yes, they are my size. You really just guessed?"

"Well, you left a footprint on the welcome mat to Sweet Tooth. I measured it and estimated from that. Seriously? You like them?"

"I honestly think they're the best invention known to man. Aside from the rendering of sugar into caramel."

"Good, good," she said. She popped her hands together and announced, "Now, let's get this cake out there."

She walked backwards in front of the cart while he pushed it. Moving slowly in the shadows cast by the rainbow lights of the dancefloor, they positioned the cart beside the bride and groom's table, arranged with a sliver cutting utensil and two goblets, plates, forks, and a large swan ice sculpture with a tiny candle floating in a small indention on its back.

The cake was all sparkling edible gold accents on a chocolate background, with the flowers of the large, classically red rose variety. As of yet, the reception had not progressed to eating, so the swirling lights and slowdancing couples were the center of attention, leaving the bakers to linger in peace. "That's kinda pretty," commented Midori as they stepped back to admire their handiwork.

Yet another opportunity to experiment popped up. "Not as pretty as you," replied L.

Curiously, this experiment yielded the same results as before. Midori blushed hard enough to be noticed in the partial light, and covered her face with an embarrassed laugh. "Quit that," she said from behind her hands. "I'll be red as a beet all day."

Mentally, L congratulated himself. Gosh, he was getting good at this. Maybe this ability to smooth-talk had been in him all along, waiting for the chance to show itself. Or maybe it was her bringing it out in him. Now all he had to do was not say something stupid, while continuing the string of saying complimentary things, preferably with double-meanings that striated into the quasi-sexual flirtatious category.

He'd have to be patient waiting for new material.

The song ended and the audience clapped. The groom, dressed in a tuxedo, offered his hand to the bride's mother. The bride was twirled gracefully into another song by the groom's father.

L was disrupted from his critique of their dancing by a snuffly sigh beside him. Peeking over, he saw Midori with tears on her cheeks, which were bent around a smile.

"What's wrong?" he asked worriedly. Surely, any common cold or virus he could have given her through their tête-à-tête in the kitchen would not have manifested so soon...

"Nothing," she sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with the edge of her apron. "It's just so...so..."

"Sweet?" L supplied.

She beamed up at him, lashes dark with moisture. "Yeah," she breathed. "Sweet."

The love in the air was nearly tangible. L felt emboldened by the atmosphere of burgeoning romance and new beginnings centered around the happy newlyweds. With a swell of his heart, he realized he wanted...a beginning. Not a new beginning, just...someplace to start. Didn't all the couples he'd seen on the streets and on television hold hands? He slid his hand into Midori's, who shifted over a few inches so that their shoulders brushed.

"I'm worried," she said in a voice so soft he almost didn't catch it.

"Why?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the cake. Did they forget another tier?

"This," she motioned between them with a free hand. "I just don't want it to hurt when I hit the ground."

"We've only known each other for a few days," acquiesced Ryuzaki. "But I already know one thing for certain...I won't let you fall."

With twin archaic smiles, they continued to watch as more couples spilled onto the floor.

They hadn't been invited to the reception, so the dance floor was not for them. That didn't bother them. Eventually, Midori swung lightly in front of him and, as one, their hands slid home. She rested hers on his shoulders with her fingers entwined behind his neck, and he rested his hands on her hips, thumbs hooked in her apron strings and fingers splayed _just so_.

And then, in their small little corner of the universe, by the light of the swan candle, they swayed.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, L was waiting for Midori outside Sweet Tooth, clad in his new shoes, with a large bunch of hydrangeas and a smile. Accepting the offered flowers, she flung her arms around his neck. "How did you know hydrangeas were my favorite, Ryuzaki?" she asked.

"Lucky guess," replied L, slightly muffled.

"No way you just guessed that, out of all the flowers in the world," she said, burying her nose in the fluffy snowballs of periwinkle delight.

"My lips are sealed." In truth, he had hacked her long-abandoned profile on a dating site, and procured the intel from there.

"Mm," she smiled coyly. "I hope not."

There was no option other than to show her that his lips were, in fact, functional and eager. L's heart was sucked into an inter-dimensional wormhole. Well, not really, but that's what it felt like. Reluctantly, Midori pulled away and unlocked the door, flipped the lights, and switched the sign to 'Open'.

"Seriously, though, hydrangeas don't even grow in Japan. How did you find these?"

He'd called a friend of Wammy's in America, who had a very well-known nursery full of mature hydrangeas, thrown an obscene amount of money in his lap, and put her in contact with another friend of Wammy's who specialized in quick deliveries for those who could pay. In ten minutes, the blooms had been picked, and within an hour, they were on a plane to Nepal, where the pilot stopped for fuel and handed off the blooms to a Tibetan monk, who carried them across the border and into the hands of another pilot, who completed the trip to Japan. Total time: nine hours, thirty-seven minutes. "Perhaps under torture I would eventually give that information," he said gravely, "But you don't strike me as the fingernail-pulling type."

Midori nodded. "I pull hair, jokes, and occasionally legs, but no fingernails." The cellophane wrap crinkled in her hands as she snipped the string. "But thank you all the same. They're beautiful." She shot him a high-beam dose of foolish grinning that made him, unconsciously, stand a bit straighter. He'd made her happy. He was surprised at how happy that made him.

"Welcome to your first real day on the job, Ryuzaki. See that?" she indicated the cold cases with the bouquet.

L looked carefully at the displays. "No, I don't."

"Since we sell out almost every day, that's _space _between the cakes. And it simply won't do," Midori reached under the counter for a vase, and again for a piece of cloth that was black with white polka dots and ruffled with pink. When she tossed it in his direction, he caught it with a look of mild confusion. It was an apron.

"So, we bake today for walk-ins?"

"Correct, Ryuzaki. Strap in tight, it's gonna be bumpy." With a sharp tug to the strings of her own apron, the day began.

Twenty minutes later, the oven was primed, the flowers arranged, the condiments restocked, and the ingredients gathered. The two were pouring over Sweet Tooth's proprietary scone recipe (or rather, Midori was barely looking at it and L was frantically trying to discern the difference between a tsp and a Tbsp).

This, like the moped death ride, had not been covered in his research. It seemed his brain, for all its brilliance, had not deemed it necessary to alert him to the possibility he might actually be _baking _in a _bakery._

"Okay, add the flour and butter to the food processor," Midori began, peering at him over a pair of reading glasses that made him feel like a naughty school boy. In a really, really good way.

L obliged. He dumped the entire bag of flour and the stick of butter into the belly of the beast.

Midori gave a heartfelt sigh, rubbing her temples. "Have you ever baked, Ryuzaki?" she asked gently.

"No." He doubted microwaving a brownie counted.

"Read a recipe?"

"No." Recap: tsp or Tsp?

"Watched a cooking channel?"

"No." He watched the news. Because he was _that_ cool.

Another sigh. "Then let's start with the basics."

They raked out the flour and salvaged the stick of butter. "Okay, first is flour."

With great care, L scooped the amount.

"Hold on, level it off, like this," she took his hand and guided it in scraping the excess of the top of the measurement. They both smiled faintly at the contact.

"This much butter," she said, cutting off the majority of a stick and instructing him to cube it.

"Why cube it?" he asked, trying not to slice his finger.

"So it breaks up faster. And now, add the salt, baking powder, dried cranberries, and sugar."

He managed to keep up with only a second's panic.

"Good. Now put the lid on like this, and press this button."

L was unprepared for the unholy RACKET the machine made. The whirring coupled with the thudding semi-solid butter reverberated in the kitchen. After an ear-splitting amount of time, she flicked the button back and the noise stopped. She looked down. "Yeah, scared me too, my first time."

With as much dignity as he possessed, L got off the floor and straightened his ruffles.

Clearing her throat and trying not to grin (and failing), Midori measured out some heavy whipping cream and a spoonful of vanilla. "Now you're going to stream this in. Prepare yourself." The food processor went back on. Under her critical eye, he streamed. The dough turned from a sandy-with-red-flecks mixture to a cohesive clump that spun around in the machine, clinging to one blade.

"Perfect. And now," she said, turning off the machine. "We refrigerate it. Some plastic wrap, please." With quick, floured hands, she pressed the dough into a hub and wrapped it.

As it turned out, there was a trick to scones. Without refrigeration, they spread out and didn't cook right. "We want the dough cold, but not solid. Like this one," she tossed him a Frisbee-shaped hub.

Back at the counter, he cut the cold round into eight even pieces with great care, placed them on a pan, and sprinkled them with sugar. The heat from the oven blasted his face as he slid the tray into its orangey depths.

"Set the timer for ten minutes, and we're done!"

"Done?"

"Not for the day, but that's one recipe down. It's the easiest."

That was the easiest?

He was in for a rough day.

Midori wasn't entirely without mercy. She put L doing mostly repetitive tasks like affixing chocolate flowers to cupcakes, sprinkling cinnamon, rolling out pie dough, and washing dishes. She even let him taste everything, because, as she put it, "How can you sell it if you don't know how fantastic it is? That's not arrogance, by the way. It's simple facts."

The steam from the sink and the heat from the oven made for a humid environment unconducive to comfort, but seeing the perfect little curls at the nape of her neck clinging darkly to her skin made it worth it. Midori opened a screened window to let out some of the heat, and the delicious aroma of four pies, eight dozen cupcakes, cinnamon rolls, and six types of cookies escaped onto the street.

The people started to flood in after that. In between question games and recipes, Midori taught him how to use the cash register and introduced him to more than one geriatric old lady that simply loved scones. When they found out that L had made the scones that day, the flurry of compliments floored him. When he donned the apron, he was not L, master detective. He was Ryuzaki, scone-slayer and cupcake baker.

The hours flew as they chatted around their tasks, learning more about each other. He found out that her top three favorite things about Japan was the tea, the sushi, and the sights. "Okay, tea is a given. It may be an everyday thing, but it never fails to send me to transcendence. And sushi is somewhat dilettante, like you'd expect from a nonnative. But the sights..." Midori paused to stare into space with a reminiscent smile. "I love this time of year: the sakura are in bloom, and the graveyards are decorated, and the koi fish are close to the surface of the ponds...What do you do in your spare time, Ryuzaki?"

L nearly dropped the tray of unbaked cookies he carried. _Mayday, mayday..._"Um, I...like puzzles."

"Jigsaw puzzles, or sudoku?"

"Both." He didn't really know. Note to self: research puzzles.

At the end of the day, in the dusk-lit store, sitting at the very table they had first talked, Midori shared a pot of her favorite peach oolong and a bento box she'd packed with him in mind. Everything had a component he liked to eat, from the apricot rice to the banana ragoons dipped in chocolate. It gave him unprecedented pleasure to notice that, even so soon, she'd picked up on his eating habits.

"So, what do you think?" she asked him, daintily nibbling at a rice ball. "About the job."

L considered. "I like the sugar."

"Go on."

"And I like smelling the sugar all day."

"Uh-huh."

"And shockingly, I like the work, too. I didn't think I would."

"It is tough, but there's something to be said for earning your own money, your own way, by plying a craft." She lifted the lid on her teacup, using it to trap the leaves as she sipped. "You wanna know what I like most?"

L nodded.

"I like making people happy. Sometimes, a cinnamon roll is so much more than a cinnamon roll. It can remind someone of a beloved family member, or take them back to a place in time."

They lapsed into comfortable silence, finishing the bento box. Ryuzaki was tired, his white T-shirt smeared with various confections, but insanely happy. They continued to talk. Darkness had fallen entirely before they realized the time.

"What time is it?" Midori asked, yawning.

L pulled out the cell phone he'd lifted from Misa-Misa, glancing at the time. "Time for bed."

Midori eyed the pink cell phone with the girlie charm on the antenna. She snickered, but hid it well as a cough. "Let's wrap it up, handsome."

They locked up, and she stepped into his arms, resting her head on his chest. Under the rare stars and amidst the sounds of nightlife, Midori inhaled L's scent. "Ryuzaki," she breathed, eyes closing.

L inhaled her shampoo, his gangly body inflating. "Hm?"

She leaned up to whisper in his ear, "I love you."

His arms reflexively tightened. He looked at her, face unreadable in set and due to the dark.

Midori flushed with embarrassment. She'd just dropped the three-little-words like a willy-nilly grenade. Stepping back, she muttered, "Too soon, sorry, sorry, I-"

She never finished the sentence. He swept her up all over again, tighter this time, like he never wanted to let go. His lips descended on hers with fervor to rival his love for strawberries. When they finally came up for air, breathless, he murmured back (as if it needed saying), "I love you, too, Midori."

Somewhere, despite urbanism's invasion, a cricket began to sing.


	6. Chapter 6

"Are you okay?" asked Light, looking up from his paperwork. They were comparing employment profiles from current working middle-aged Japanese males, which was about half the population of Japan, as per L's hidden-agenda-spurred research. Some could be eliminated by the computers, and others by circumstantial evidence, but the rest were simply by rote. They each had a tall stack of folders, thick and thin.

L's eyes came back into focus. "Yes. Why?" he asked in his normal monotone. He had a reputation to uphold, and a 7% Kira candidate in the room: _No daydreaming allowed_, he admonished himself.

"You just seem, um..." Light glanced around the room, where the other Kira team members were in various stages of listening or pretending not to listen. "Well, you seem distracted, to be honest." And oh, how honest those golden eyes were (attempting to be). L imagined he could see their true intent, somewhere in the depths of the pupils.

Ah, he could always tell what Midori was thinking by the shape and intensity of her pretty, chocolate brown eyes, try as she might to hide her feelings..."Distracted?" he echoed, pulling himself back to present. "What makes you say that?"

"You're staring off into space a lot. And your work levels have decreased," continued Light, looking around for support from the others. What, they'd discussed this beforehand? Drawn straws? Picked a number?

"And you haven't touched your cake," added Matsuda, in a 'what is this world coming to?' tone of voice.

L contained his startle. Indeed, the slice of cake (Sweet Tooth's Coconut Craving) was untouched.

_What is WRONG WITH ME? _L internally howled. Was Midori even taking the place of sweets? That was impossible, both on the grounds that he was a sweet fiend and that she was, in herself, an enabler of his sugary habits. She was Sweet Tooth, and he was her boyfriend, and he loved sweets to the point of obsession. Therefore, the three of them (two, _two _of them [was he referring to the sugar addiction as an entity within him, like a schizophrenic?]) could not be separated. Outwardly, L took a forkful of the treat, conscious of the eyes upon him. "I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about," he said. _Great cake, Midori. If only you were here with the rest of it..._

Light frowned, and reluctantly let it go. "If you say so," he muttered, and returned to his files.

L's last thought spun in his mind as he rifled absently through another folder. Why couldn't Midori see him at work?

More importantly, why hadn't he told her who he was, truly? He was L, the great detective, currently hunting down Kira. His job was as complex as a chess game between world-class rivals, as chillingly dangerous as a tightrope walk, and, by the way, he was keeping his closest candidate for Kira in the same room with him roughly fourteen hours a day...

Well, it was obvious why he hadn't told her. But, equally obvious, L knew that if he and Midori were to go any further, he would have to. The real question was how to tell her. Would he blindfold her and take her here, show her his Batcave? Would he ruin their planned, quintessential Italian dinner date tomorrow afternoon: "Dear, my alter ego is L, that shadowy figure on TV a lot lately. Please pass the garlic bread."? Would he hire sky writers to spell out the doom of their relationship in fluffy white font?

Maybe she would take it shockingly well. Maybe she wouldn't panic. Maybe she wouldn't hate him for making her fall for him, and then basically saying that his life was in danger every minute of every day. Not to mention what would happen if Kira, be he Light or someone else (pfft, as if!) found out about her...

* * *

"OH, GREAT PASTRY GOOOOODDDS!" yodeled Midori to the bakery ceiling. "We summon thee here, and quell thy insatiable hunger for sacrifice with these humble offerings!" She smacked her hands together, crumbling the cookie in her hand over the bunch of smoking white sage.

L took his cue to hit the small drum under his arm, rattling his necklace of bent spoons and icing nails._ Tung!_

"We implore thee, great overseers of baked goods worldover, to bless this undertaking of monumental proportions!"

_Tung!_

"Bless this souffle, and may it rise to heights previously unknown!"

_Tung!_

"May its edges be caramelized!"

_Tung!_

"May its center be cooked through, unsinkable!"

_Tung!_

"May our oven bake evenly! PLEASE LET THIS WORK!" she finished desperately.

_TUNG! TUNG! TUNG!_

Midori carefully slid the souffle into the oven, closed it, and folded her hands at her breastbone. "It's in the hands of the Pastry Gods now," she murmured, her headdress of piping bags fluttering.

L nodded and put down the drum, his hand finding the divot in her shoulder. "This one will work. I just know it."

She gave him a wane smile. "Thanks for participating. It makes me feel better."

"Anytime." And by anytime, he meant never again. As she gently wriggled her way into his arms, resting her head on his chest, L couldn't bring himself to break the moment of peace and harmony.

He would tell her who he was. Eventually.


	7. Chapter 7

Midori didn't want ANY help picking out what she would wear for her date with Ryuzaki. None at all. She knew exactly what was pretty on her, what was her color, what was classy, and what would blow his brains out.

The blouse in her hands was in the last of the categories. The pleats in the chest unfolded a little when she wore it, making her C-cups look like BAM! D-cups! Warning: use only when desirous of zero eye-contact with any male of the human species.

Jeezum pete, she was beyond nervous. She was rambling in her _head_, for goodies sake. And seeing as the BAM Blouse would only cause her to feel self-conscious, she threw it to the discarded pile.

She knew she would be in a knee-length white skirt with lace along the edge and white embroidered detailing, but not what blouse would go with it. The skirt was cute enough for her tastes but dressy enough for a date. Her _first_ date.

Midori gave a little groan, sinking down on the clothes-covered bed. "What am I doing?" she asked herself. Ryuzaki was the best guy a girl could ask for, and the only one she'd ever had feelings for. Those feelings had tentative echoes of forever in them: maybe, she thought, dodging the shiver in her soul, that was what contributed to her nerves.

Taking a deep breath, Midori applied her infamous type-A personality to the roiling emotions inside her, walked to the closet, and took out the last season-appropriate blouse. Holding it up to her front in the mirror, she slowly let a smile grow on her face.

"Gotcha," she breathed.

* * *

L was in trouble. Not, _per se_, the life or death trouble that plagued his profession, but close.

In two hours, he would be picking Midori up for their date.

And he had nothing to wear.

He added another mental face-palm to the collection decorating his psyche. He was a world-class detective, with an entire alphabet after his name, and he couldn't remember that his wardrobe consisted entirely of jeans and t-shirts.

Really, he was ready to give Kira his name, clasp a rose to his chest, paint a peaceful smile on his face, and just die.

He couldn't tell Watari to run out and get him a date-worthy outfit. Watari, to L's knowledge, was entirely in the dark, as was the rest of the Kira Investigation Team. For once, L was on his own.

Giving his thumbnail a comforting nibble, L steeled his resolution. He had outwitted countless criminals, executed myriad arrest schemes, and navigated situations that would put Navy tacticians in the fetal position. He could do this.

He pushed aside his last few pairs of jeans in the very back of his walk-in closet. His hand jerked away as though he'd been bitten. There was the answer to his problems! If it had been a snake, it _would've_ bitten him.

* * *

T-minus, five minutes. Midori sat at her vanity, applying her entire meager spread of cosmetics. She had a remarkably smooth face, thank God, and her eyes were an easy-to-accent chocolate brown, but what about her lips? She anticipated, and rather fairly so, that whatever she put on her mouth would come off quickly, be it by Ryuzaki's penchant for kissing her or the meal, but she was stubborn. Taking to heart the adage 'less is more', she settled for a tinted gloss that left her lips shiny and full. Was it devilish of her to chose a vanilla-flavored topcoat?

Her eyes flashed coyly at her reflection. _Who, me?_

Spraying her rose-scented perfume made her deflate a little. She'd always hated that her sensitivity to smells kept her from stronger, brand-name perfumes. They gave her awful headaches, whereas simple, natural smells did not. Midori comforted herself by knowing that Ryuzaki was a man of simple tastes (as evidenced by his usual dress). Come to think of it, what would he be wearing?

The buzzer for her apartment rang, and Midori jumped. "Oh, man. Oh, man..." A last feverish pat to her hair, she snatched up her coordinated tote and carried her shoes to the door. She stabbed the button. "Who is it?" she asked the speaker.

"It's me," came the reply. His voice sent a little shiver of excitement down her spine.

"Come on up."

While his footsteps tread the stairwell, growing closer, Midori reached down to slide on her flats and adjust her clothes. A moment of panic: what if he didn't like it? What if she opened the door, he saw her, and his face fell?

He knocked.

She opened.

And her pulse flew.

He. Had. On. A. SUIT.

L's brain went completely offline for a crucial second. If his vision hadn't been filled with her, it would've been just a static-filled screen. Midori was beautiful. Her striated hair was wavy and pinned in places, framing her face and making her surprised eyes pop. Her top was a bias-cut green, complimenting her fair skin and parted, pink lips, and her skirt showed toned, smooth calves and perfect ankles.

Midori was suffering from a very mild internal seizure. Sundry muscles in her limbs her taking turns twitching, trying to raise her hands to her mouth to cover the gasp that escaped. Her heart was doing yo-yos in her chest, alternating between flying and dropping out of a trapdoor in her stomach. Ryuzaki was wearing a dark gray suit that fit him perfectly, accenting his broad-shouldered frame and height. No tie - that would've totally ruined the effect of the first button undone in his dress shirt. His hair was brushed, yes, but tussled into careless peaks that she itched to run her fingers through.

If there had ever been an instance when Midori wanted to rip the clothes off someone, this was it.

Apparently, every girl WAS crazy for a sharp-dressed man._  
_

"Hey." Finally, her brain rubbed two neurons together.

"Hey," Ryuzaki replied, the spark catching. As one, they took note of the lack of a necessity of compliments. Their mutual reactions were plenty: words would cheapen it.

He swallowed. Twice. "Ready to go?"

She nodded, still shaking the effects to the seizure-that-was-not and her incredibly strong urge to see his skin, and took his proffered arm. L was rather happy to note that the movement he'd practiced for the last thirty minutes was effective, judging by her blush, just as the internet source had said. The walk to the restaurant was short, but Midori could barely remember it later. She'd been smiling and blushing so hard she'd barely remembered to walk, not float. His hand in hers was all that kept her feet on the earth.

**Okay, guys, the actual date will have to come later. The storm of the century is bearing down on my house, and I need to boot down the computer if I am to save it. Toodles! R&R, please!**


	8. Chapter 8

They were seated on the patio overlooking a garden, and after ordering their drinks and appetizers, Mirdori and L wandered the twining paths. Tea candles in glass holders lighted the place gently, and moths swooped like confetti in their trance. A bridge arched over the man-made creek with swirling with colorful koi, and they leaned over the railing at its apex to watch the bright fish beg for food.

L had to tell her. Already, the weight of his newly-realized secret was gnawing away at his insides. He couldn't lead her on like this, even though he really did love her. It almost pained him, the degree of his passion.

If this secret didn't kill him, her sure reaction would. But his sense of justice and right would not let him rest.

As though sensing his thoughts, Midori slid her arm around his. "You alright? You're kinda quiet." The other hand slid up to his shoulder with questing, testing fingers. "And tense."

He sighed. "I have something to tell you, Midori. You're not going to like it."

Those fingers sank gently into his muscle. "I bet I know what it is."

"I doubt it. And you are really, really not gonna like it."

"Is that so? Well, let me try to guess." She rested her chin on his shoulder, pondering the koi. So soft he almost missed it, she said, "You're gay."

Insert record scratch here. "What?" he choked, looking down at her.

She was grinning like the cat that got the canary. "Couldn't resist. "

Despite the gravity of the situation, he narrowed his eyes. "That is _beyond_ not funny."

Midori's laughter sounded like bells. "Lighten up! Surely it's not so bad."

"Oh, it is right on up there."

"Well, we, can't deal with it until it's known. Out with it."

Ryuzaki opened his mouth (_here goes everything_), but nothing came out. He gulped like the hungry fish below, then clamped his mouth shut with shame at his own cowardice.

She made a sound of compassion at his expression. "Whatever it is, we can get through it."

He took a deep breath. "Alright, here it goes." He closed his eyes and uttered, _"I am the detective L."_

Was that an echo? Strange resonance against the brick motif of the flower beds? Or had she really just said the words with him?_  
_

_"What?" _croaked L. He staggered back a pace.

She pegged him with a slightly diluted version of the cat/canary smile. "I've know for a long time, babe."

L gaped.

"What, you think you're the only person gifted in observance? I matched your voice cadence, inflection, and your silhouette to the mysterious L's public broadcasts." She leaned her elbow off the edge of the railing, eyeing him quizzically. "That, and your intelligence. It fit."

L recovered just a bit. "Are you telling me," he began shakily, "That you've known I have the most dangerous job in the world, that I've been keeping secrets from you, and still..."

She sidled closer unobtrusively. "I figured I would have to wait until Kira had been captured for you to come clean."

"Surely you were angry!"

She glanced away. "Dang skippy I was. Still am, a little. I hate secrets, especially from those I love." Midori cupped his face with cool fingers. "But I decided it didn't matter. I still love you, and I still want to be with you."

Ryuzaki's - L's - heart bounced in his thoracic cavity like a demented rabbit. _She still loves me, she loves me..._

"So the real question, L," Midori said, turning eyes infused with anxiety to him, "Is will you let me in? I know your secret. Will you keep me at arm's length and let this affection slowly fade - "

"No," he replied firmly, grasping her by the upper arms, his face intense. "No, that will never happen." She allowed him to gather her into his embrace. "I couldn't lose you, not over something so menial."

She held him tighter. The restaurant bustled, the people passed, the water flowed. They held on. "This changes the game a little," she breathed at last. The tone of anxiety and inquisition was gone from her voice.

"I would say more than a little." He was so relieved: like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. She didn't resent him.

"Can I tell you a secret? Tit for tat?"

Ryuzaki pecked her lips, discovered it wasn't enough, and kissed her deeper before answering. "I'm listening."

She stood on tip-toes to whisper in his ear, "I hate Italian food."

A smile slowly broke over his face. "Really?"

She nodded, sheepishly grinning. "Not sweet enough."

His smile graduated to a laugh. "Leave it to you. Come on," he took her hand. "Let's find something to sate our sweet tooth."

She laced their fingers, eyes sparkling. "We may be searching for a while. Perhaps your skills can be of aid in procuring such a mythical dish?"

"They already have, Midori. They already have."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**Phew! Over and done! I think this story is more cutesy than hardcore DeathNote, but what do you expect? I hope everyone enjoyed it, and came away from it with a smile and a renewed craving for all things sweet. A zillion thanks to all my readers, reviewers, and favers. You guys are my fuel.**

**Kepouros  
**


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